Kat Millar

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3 Essential Skills For Getting Fully Booked With Clients

If you are a coach or service-based business owner, or you want to be, and if you want to get fully booked with paid clients that are going to pay you what you’re worth, you’re in the right place.

Over the years I’ve been so blessed to work with hundreds of business owners, and I’ve noticed there are 3 main problems entrepreneurs face when it comes to getting more clients.

The first problem is a lack of strategy.

When you don’t have a clear, effective strategy with actionable steps, that you’re doing on a day-to-day basis, it’s very hard to grow your business.

In my last blog, I shared how to create the right strategy. If you missed it, you can check it out here…

The second problem is a lack of skills, and that’s what I’m going to be sharing with you today.

The third problem I see is a lack of support.

Many entrepreneurs don’t realise the power of having a supportive community and a mentor. When they come up against roadblocks (which we always do in business, right!), they get stuck, discouraged and many businesses fail.

In this three-part series, I’m unpacking each of these three problems and how you can overcome them.

There are 3 essential skills that you need to have to attract the right clients – and not just any clients, but the right people for you who are going to pay you what you’re worth, and that you’re going to be able to help create breakthroughs and a brilliant transformation in their life.

I noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs, coaches, service-based business owners are really good at what they do.

For example, if you are a mindset coach you’re probably skilled at helping someone to release limiting beliefs, overcome fixed mindsets, and barriers.

If you’re a relationship coach, you’re probably skilled at helping someone overcome conflict and create a deeper connection.

If you’re a career coach, you’re probably skilled at helping someone find the right job for the.

But it doesn’t matter how good you are at these industry skills or at your craft, if you don’t have the right business skills, it’s like having half a business. And without these skills, you’re not going to make it in business.

There are 3 main skills you need to get more clients.

1 – Client Attraction Skills

The first skill is client attraction. There are a number of parts when it comes to marketing and being able to attract the right clients for you. Client attraction skills is about marketing specifically to get clients.

There is a difference between the way you market a service, compared to how you market a product.

So if you’re a coach or have a service and you’re selling time with you, or you’re selling your expertise as a subject matter expert, you’ve got to get good at marketing specifically for client attraction.

Content Creation 

Getting really good at creating content is key. You’ve got to create valuable written and video content, and consistently provide value to your target market.

Are you consistently showing up and giving valuable, helpful, relevant content to your clients, at least once a week?

Are you regularly sharing valuable content on social media, on your website and on email?

There’s a saying in marketing “Don’t build on someone else’s land”.

What that means is don’t just try and build your business on social media. Social media is an amazing way to connect with people, to build rapport, to get people to know, like you and trust you.

Social media is about building relationships. It’s relationship marketing.

But you also need to be able to have your own land, which is your own website and your own email service provider.

You need to be sending out regular emails at least weekly, because email open rates are so much higher than you’ll ever get on social media unless you’ve got a massive budget to spend on Facebook ads.

It’s very unlikely you can build a really profitable, successful business just through social media. I don’t know a way to do it. And if you do figure out a way then let me know! But I’ve never seen it happen. Every successful business owner I know has a great email list.

Your email list doesn’t need to be massive,  but you need people who you can market to, nurture, look after, and give value to through email. You also need to be consistently posting on your website.

Copywriting

Copywriting is the words you use to attract clients. You need to develop the skill of copywriting, because copywriting is usually what is letting you down if your marketing is not working.

If you try to launch an online course, a webinar, or a freebie and it didn’t gain you clients, more than likely it’s because of the copy you used.

Your video skills don’t have to be perfect, but your copywriting has to speak to your ideal client. You need to hone your skill of copywriting and it’s so important that you know the language that your ideal client resonates with so that you connect with them.

You want people to read your writing and think, ‘It’s like they have been overhearing my conversations!’ You want to have so many conversations with people so that you understand how you can best help them.

Ask people what they’re struggling with, what roadblock they are encountering, and ask people how you can help them overcome their problems.

I coached hundreds and hundreds of people with so many free discovery sessions. I would pour my heart into people, even if they weren’t going to sign up with me, because of all that I learned.

The coaching experience was such a valuable experience. Doing these sessions helped me understand what people needed help with, and where I could come in and help them. These sessions helped me understand my target market’s language.

The best way to get good at copywriting is to do it and to follow other people who are great at writing copy.

I consume a lot of copywriting. I love reading Facebook ads, because someone is investing money into making sure the copywriting on those Facebook ads is good. If you scroll past Facebook ads and you just use Facebook for fun, it’s not going to help you grow your business.

You might want to create a file of Facebook ads. I do this on Evernote, an organisation system. I have created a file called ‘Facebook ads’ and I put a whole heap of Facebook ad wording in there, to get ideas to get better as a copywriter.

Communicating your value

You also need to get really good at communicating your value and influencing people to take action – through your written and video content.

It’s so important that you know how to effectively speak to your ideal clients’ frustrations, fears, dreams and desires and clearly articulate how you can help people.

2 – Sales Skills

The second skill is selling. Many people cringe when they hear the word sales and selling.

I used to as well – I thought sales people were pushy and I would avoid it. I thought of sales as having to try to convince someone to buy from me. I didn’t realise that there’s a way of selling that feels enjoyable for both people.

If what you offer people improves the quality of someone’s life, you are doing them a disservice not to share it with them.

After doing a sales course, something clicked in my head that I was thinking too much about myself and what others might think of me, rather than actually helping them.

I had to totally reframe what I understood sales to be.

I now see selling as service. Selling is helping. Selling is caring.

If you’re ethically and authentically helping someone improve their life, why would you not want to tell people about how you can help them?

Every time I’ve bought from a mentor or an expert, or I bought a course or some form of education, my life has improved. In fact, the return on investment that I’ve had in investing in education and coaching is unbelievable.

I love buying education. I love buying from coaches and mentors. That is what accelerates your growth and gives you rapid results. When I started investing lots of money, I got incredible results.

By buying education, I now don’t ever have to work for anyone ever again! That is a BEAUTIFUL thing.

I can work for myself at home. I can make a six-figure income, because I’ve invested in coaching and education. I could never repay those people for how much they’ve helped me.

When you think of sales like that, when you think of the things that you’re so grateful that you purchased, it makes you want to inspire people to buy.

The word sales can have connotations of an 80’s car salesman. If you have that feeling, it may help to reframe it and think of sales as inspiring people to buy.

Think of it as sharing your message so someone can breakthrough into a new place in their life.

Developing the skill of sales is extremely important if you want to make it in business. You’ve got to learn how to do it correctly and authentically and then practice it.

When you have the skill of being able to sell, you can make money anytime, anywhere and that’s priceless.

3 – Presenting Skills

The third skill I recommend that you develop in order to attract your ideal clients is the skill of presenting. The world has changed and people are realising how easy it is to build a business through being at home.

But to make it as a coach or service-provider, you’ve got to get good on video. You cannot hide behind words anymore. People want to connect with you.

It’s different if you’ve got a product you’re selling. People don’t necessarily need to connect with you as a person.

But if people are buying time with you, they want to see you and hear you.

How willing are you to put aside your self-consciousness and show up on video?

A lot of people aren’t willing to do this. They hide behind written words. They don’t jump on video. Or, they jump on video but they haven’t practiced. They haven’t organised their knowledge and they haven’t put their knowledge into clear, actionable steps.

And when it comes to video, people are watching to see how consistent you are at showing up.

The skill of presenting is learnable. You don’t have to be an extrovert. I’m not. You don’t have to be super confident either. You just have to believe in what you’re sharing. You have to know it’s true. You have to have done it yourself, so you share with authenticity and integrity.

You’ve got to be willing to present yourself, show up with confidence, and give value.

If you take the time to hone these skills, learn from an expert, keep growing, improving and showing up, there’s no reason why you can’t get fully booked with clients, make an incredible income and help so many people.

You’re building an asset and a legacy that will keep going and going, once you know how to attract clients, know how to inspire them to buy and know how to present.

The sky will be your limit and your income will have no ceiling.

Then you don’t have to rely on someone else paying you every single week. You can make your own money.

If you can stop being distracted by everything that you could be doing in business and start honing these three skills, you can make money fast.

Something I LOVE about entrepreneurship is that the playing field is equal for everyone. You don’t have to have a formal education. You don’t have to have been born in a certain generation that understands tech. You don’t have to be a ‘natural’ marketer, sales person or presenter. All of these skills are learnable for everyone.

If you want to develop these three skills, then I highly recommend that you join me next week on Facebook Live in my Amplify Your Influence group.

We will be talking about the third problem that most entrepreneurs make, which is not having the right support that is what accelerates your growth.

I will be unpacking how you can develop these skills in a free workshop that I’m holding on August 8th, 2020.

This is a new full-day online workshop. I will be showing you how to develop these skills, how to attract clients and I’ll also be giving you feedback on your own business, and helping you with where your gaps and your weaknesses are.

You’ll walk away with a clear marketing roadmap and you’ll also get my 5-step client attraction formula, with all the slides, the workbook, and resources.

Learn more about the ‘Attract New Clients With Ease Workshop

Looking forward to seeing you!

Kat

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7 Mistakes People Make When Running Online Events

Have you ever thought that you’d like to run online events?

Do you currently run online events and would like to make them better?

Running online events, like webinars or virtual workshops, is one of the fastest ways to attract your ideal clients, especially right now.

Having run over 100 online events, each one getting me clearer and clearer on what works, I’ve tested and measured the best ways to do them effectively and successfully.

There are so many things that you have to think through prior to an online event, like how to best use technology, what marketing to do, how to effectively structure your talk, and how to get people to turn up for your event.

Over the years working with so many different people, I’ve noticed that there are 7 core mistakes that people make when it comes to running online events.

There are some critical things that people get wrong and in this video and article, I unpack them, so you can avoid making the same mistakes.

Before I go into the 7 main mistakes, I want to first share with you 4 reasons why running online events is SO effective:

1 – Online Events Help You Grow Your Email List

Your email list – your database of people – is one of your most valuable assets in business. Obviously we don’t own anyone’s details on social media, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn, so it’s important to build your list.

We do this by having landing pages where people can opt in to your event, so that you now have their email address so you can continue to give them value and share other offers with them.

There are always people who sign up for a workshop and don’t turn up, but you’ve got their details and you can continue marketing to them and nurturing them in the future.

2 – With Online Events You Can Speak to More People at One Time

If you’re only ever doing one-on-one coaching, you’re very limited to the impact that you can have.

If you want to make more money, help more people faster, have a bigger reach and make a difference to more people, then online events are a beautiful way to do it.

3 – Online Events Can Help You Get People’s Attention Fast

Holding online events it’s a fast way to get and hold people’s attention. It’s very hard to hold someone’s attention by just a social media post, a blog or even a Facebook Live video.

If you run an event people get to know you, like you, trust you and build rapport with you because they have longer exposure to you, so you can inspire and educate them.

4 – Online Events Raise Your Positioning and Credibility

Your positioning and credibility are increased because not everyone is willing to take the risk of putting themselves out there.

If you’re willing to do this, it puts you more in the position of being an expert. It also enables you to educate and inspire people to take action.

Not everyone’s ready to buy straight away and they need your education so they will see the benefit they will receive when they make a change in their life.

A lot of people are resistant to change, so you can use events to educate people and them overcome their limiting beliefs.

Running online and live events has opened up so many opportunities for me and I get most of my clients through running events.

Online events are not going to go away, in fact they will only grow and ramp up – so now is the time to get in!

Now you know WHY you should be holding online events, here are the 7 mistakes I’ve found people make when running online events:
1 – Not Tailoring the Talk to the Audience

When running online events, I’ve noticed that some people speak on what they want to share, but what is so important is that you tailor the message to your ideal clients.

So you’re not being general or broad, but you’re solving the exact problems that your ideal client has.

I’ve never given a talk where I haven’t asked people for some prior input, like a survey. I’ve asked them what they want to learn about, what their main challenges are, what their dreams and goals are.

At one company I spoke at, I had one of the board of directors sit down and interview all of the instructors and staff. I listened to the recordings and created the talk based on that.

You don’t want to try and just wing it and guess.

If you are giving people what they want, if you’re speaking their language, then they’re going to get so much value from it.

You need to do your research by talking to people, going to networking events, seminars and talking to and listening to people to find out their needs.

You can poll your Facebook community, get people to complete a survey before a coaching session or at the end of a workshop or webinar.

2 – Failing to Set Frames

A frame is something that you build an idea around that you want people to have. For example, when people come to an event, you’ve got to quickly set the frame so everybody is sitting within the same frame.

There’s different types of frames, and they can include things like; the rules about the event, how you want people to behave within the event, and also beliefs that you want people to have through the event.

When people come to my workshops or my webinars, I always have a slide that says, ‘I’ve been at the top like the most successful people’. And then I’ll give a list of things that successful people do.

I put things like, ‘Successful people show up ready to learn, they stay focused, they take lots of notes…’

I’ll read through this list and that is setting a frame of how I want people to show up in that event. And if I miss that slide the event can be a bit chaotic.

I don’t want people to come and just be chilling out. If they have a question I want them to write it down, or put their hand up or write it in the chat box.

There are also frames are around how you want people to behave. There are also logistical frames, so I always have a slide that talks about making this a world-class learning environment and that we keep everyone’s information confidential.

I also let people know they will be put in breakout rooms. There’s also a disclaimer about being able to have participant’s photos taken and things like that, so you set all those frames at the beginning.

The other frames that are really important to mention are beliefs that you want your participants to have. Often I will show my private community Inner Circle’s manifesto which says ‘In the Inner Circle, we are on-mission action-takers. We operate from a growth mindset, we free ourselves from blame, excuses, and denial, we choose to value people, contribute, pursue our vision and loads of fun…’ etc.

This is setting the ‘frame’ that shows participants that in this event, we don’t focus on our excuses, we have an entrepreneurial mindset – we show up, we give things a go, we never give up and we see challenges as an opportunity.

3 – Not Adding Enough Value

I find that people often will not plan their event enough, where they give people ideas or concepts that they haven’t heard before, or they maybe haven’t heard it in a sort of way before. They haven’t really thought through what’s going to be truly valuable.

Value is what gets someone to take an action right away. Are the facts you’re presenting inspiring and educating enough to make people take action? If not, then it’s not valuable.

Value also means spending time practicing, thinking through what is going to be really useful for people. People love examples and stories of others who have taken a concept and put it into action in their life.

People also love templates and they want their questions answered. They want to be able to share with other people. This is all part of adding value.

Value is not squeezing in the content. I once heard someone say that if you squeeze in the content, you squeeze the audience out!

You want to make sure that your content is valuable, that people can apply it right away. And you need to give people plenty of time to think through things also, so they can digest the toolkit of ideas you’ve given them.

4 – Giving Away Too Much Information

This is probably the one that I have found the hardest. I just want to share so much of what I know because I’ve studied this stuff for over a decade and I’ve been in business for 17 years.

If you give too much information, it could be like standing in front of a fire hose to get a cup of water. It’s actually doing your audience a disservice if you give away too much information, because they can’t apply it.

If you say to your audience that they will learn all they need to know from this event, they will leave thinking they know everything and that’s not possible, so it’s doing them a disservice. They also won’t buy from you because they’ve got everything they need.

You also need to create curiosity. It’s called the Zeigarnik Effect and it’s about opening loops in people’s minds, where they actually realise they’ve got to spend more time with you as the educator.

Show them how many hours worth of knowledge there is to know about that subject and one way they can get that knowledge is through using your coaching.

5 – Speaking Without Structure

People want organised knowledge and people pay for organised knowledge. When you’re creating an event and you show up and try and pour out everything you know about the topic, that is a mistake.

You don’t want to just give people a whole heap of content or information and leave people to have to figure out what to do with it. You want to make it digestible and palatable for them, by breaking it down into steps or pillars.

The best speakers in the world have organised the information into a structure. If you think that they’re just winging it and speaking intuitively, believe me – they’re not.

It’s also good to refer people back to the beginning of your talk. You don’t just take them from here all the way from the start to finish, it’s good show them where they are in the system.

You also want to make sure that when you’re delivering your content, you use diagrams and images, so people can see a clear visual of what you’re explaining and show how things fit together.

6 – Being Unprofessional

This goes without saying, we all know that we need to be professional, but what does that look like?

Being professional means:

  • Having a nice quiet environment and making sure your audio is good and clear with no background noise
  • Making sure that you’ve got a good lighting system
  • Setting your computer or tablet up at eye level
  • Making sure you start on time
  • Ensuring you have nice professional PowerPoints, if you’re using slides
  • Practicing your talk before you deliver it

All of this is part of being professional.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be personable though. It really helps to add humour and your personality and flavour to it. Professionalism is not perfectionism. It about giving the most value while still being yourself.

Remember that everyone who comes to your online event or talk knows at least 50 close people that they can potentially refer you to.

Always be thinking that it’s not just the people that show up, but those people potentially know 50 others that you can reach.

Even if just 2 people show up, always give those 2 people your 100%, because if one person makes a change from what you’ve shared, it’s worth it right? And they will tell their friends.

7 – Focusing Too Much on Themselves

People are so self-conscious, they put off running events because they’re so concerned about what people might think of them and they are scared of judgment.

There are fears around if the technology doesn’t work and fears if no one turns up. I’ve had all these fears and different limiting beliefs myself.

Instead of focusing on the fears, focus on the good result possible, not the negatives.

I’m completely detached from who comes to my events. I care about the people attending as people, of course, but I believe that whoever turns up are the people who are meant to be there.

I don’t focus on money, I focus on doing your best work and preparing well for the event and give it your all.

I put aside days and days to create my events. I give myself feedback after events on all the things I could do better next time and I take on board all the feedback that I get from people who attended.

Turn the focus away from yourself and onto focusing on the value you can offer people.

That’s how you grow your business.

Here’s a review of 7 mistakes people make when running online events:

1 – Not Tailoring the Talk to the Audience

2 – Failing to Set Frames

3 – Not Adding Enough Value

4 – Giving Away Too Much Information

5 – Speaking Without Structure

6 – Being Unprofessional

7 – Focusing Too Much on Themselves

Would you like to learn the presenting formula that I use, so you can run online events that attract new clients?

I’m running a workshop on Saturday 4th July that will show you how to present effectively, and use online events to attract clients and build your business.

In this workshop, you’ll pick up the tools that you can use to run effective online workshops and webinars….

…so you can not only be successful in your presentation, but know exactly how to get people to show up, engage and take action.

Click here for details of the ‘Grow Your Business With Online Events’ workshop

 

See you online soon!

Kat

 

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5 Keys To Writing Compelling Content

Writing compelling content is so important for growing your business.

Too many business owners don’t nail their content wording, which ultimately impacts their sales.

Having engaging content that speaks directly to your ideal client is more important than having lavish design.

80% of the time when your content isn’t engaging and attracting new leads, it’s because of the wording.

Content is anywhere you post online – such as blog posts, Facebook live videos, social media posts and articles.

There are 3 things you need to make sure your content is effective.

* The Market

Before you dive into creating content, it’s important that you know your market, that you know exactly who you want to attract and that’s all about nailing your niche, which is a separate topic.

It’s really important to make sure that you know exactly who you’re creating content for.

I always survey people before I offer anything because I want to make sure that what I’m offering is matching and meeting their pain-point.

* The Method

If your method of delivery doesn’t hit the mark – for example if you’re writing a blog and people want to see you on video, or if you have an in-person workshop and people want something online, then you are not providing what your ideal client needs or wants.

Or if you are running a six-month program and people want an intense six-week program, it’s not going to work.

* The Message

If you have the wrong message, meaning you’re the things you’re saying aren’t landing with people, or you’re saying the right things to the wrong people, your message is not going to match the market.

Imagine these 3 things like the legs on a stool – you need all 3 for it to stand up and be solid.

Writing compelling content is so important, especially because we’ve got such low attention spans these days.

If we don’t grab people fast, people will scroll past. We need to be able to not only capture attention but engage, connect with and help inspire people to want to take action.

Here are 5 keys to writing compelling content…

1 – Be Emotive

Being emotive means that we evoke emotion in the person who’s reading our writing. And so that means we need to be evoking curiosity. We need our readers to be thinking they want more.

Another thing to do is to open loops inside your readers’ minds. You know when you’re watching a program and there are ads that come on and they announce what’s coming up next? These are teasers and we’ve got to be doing this with our writing.

Next time you write a piece of content whether it’s a blog post, social media posts or an article think about if you’re opening up curiosity and bringing sizzle. We want to make sure people feel moved. And the way that we move someone is enabling them to imagine something.

Making people use big picture descriptions and these are abstract and hard for people to grasp. Asking people if they want to reach their potential or have success in their lives can be hard for people to visualise.

We need to use what I call visual verbs. Visual verbs help you actually picture something in your mind. An example is, if you’re a coach who helps people to find their purpose, get on track and change their career, don’t say, ‘Do you want to fulfil your purpose?’ or ‘Do you want to find your passion?’

A visual way of wording this, is to say, ‘Do you want to wake up in the morning eager to set your feet on the floor, because you know there are people waiting for you to make a significant difference to their family and community?’

People want things to be simple. They want things to be fun and don’t always want things to be formal. Make sure the words you use are emotional and are also everyday language. Formality is not always helpful.

2 – Speak Your Ideal Client’s Language

Speaking your ideal client’s language means using their key words when you describe their problems. How do they describe their problem? How do they describe the result and benefit that they want?

Your ideal client may word things differently to you. What is their industry language? Learn your ideal client’s language. How do they describe their problems? Speak to them how they will hear and connect with it.

If you’re getting stuck for content ideas, something that can be really helpful is to write down five of the most common questions you get asked about your topic.

I always get asked how I run a webinar, how to set up Facebook ads, how to get more engagement on my social media.  I write the questions down and then start creating resources for them.

I’ve got hundreds of resources now, but they’re all based on having real-life conversations with my clients, and with potential clients. These conversations form my content.

I remember a client years ago saying to me they wanted a resource that was like a social media plan and map so they could see the types of posts they should be doing. I created one for them that I now use with other clients.

Think about the questions people ask you socially about what you do. Create a resource out of the answers to the questions. Then put that on your social media and blog and link to the resource on your website. This way you are also building your email list.

3 – Use the word ‘You’ 

This one is simple, but I look back on my early blogs from 2007 when I was a personal trainer and my content was terrible.  I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s taken me years to hone the skill of copywriting.

Copywriting is basically writing to influence in any kind of sales or marketing content. You don’t want to write content for content sake. You want your content to influence people to take action.

Make sure that in your content, you use the word ‘you’ as much as possible especially at the start. Write ‘Do you feel like this?’ Would you like this?’ ‘Would you like to feel…?’ Use ‘you’ instead of saying, ‘I’ve created this freebie’, or ‘I’ve discovered…’

A good thing to do is to go through all of your content with a fine-tooth comb before you post. It does not have to be perfect, but take out the word ‘I’ and flip it to ‘you’. Insert the word ‘you’ as much as you can. People will never get sick of hearing the word of you, I promise you!

4 – Use Benefit-Rich Language

Benefit-rich language is always talking about the outcome and not the features of your program. Far too many people talk about their coaching program, their method, their modality or intervention methods.

What’s most important to the person reading is what’s in it for them.

It’s good to start with some credibility initially.

You could say something like…

“Over the last six years over working as an NLP practitioner, I’ve discovered that the patterns formed in your brain in childhood can still affect you as an adult. I help people uncover these patterns, and clean them up so they can move forward. What this means for you is you’re not only improving your relationships, but you can become a master communicator.”

There’s three little one-syllable words that I use all the time in my content. And they are three words that work! Want to know what they are? ‘So you can’.

You want to use the words ‘so you can’ a lot in your copywriting.

An example is,

‘Are you ready to learn the best content creation strategies, so you can attract your ideal clients and get fully booked up as a coach?’

‘So you can’ is like a bridge where you talk about your method, your offer or your topic and you bridge it ‘so you can’ to show what it means for them.

5 –  Focus On One Outcome

You always have to have in the back of your mind the purpose, before you create any piece of content.

I see people get muddled in their posts. They’re giving lots of value, great tips and advice, but they’re talking about too many things.

We want to have one main idea per piece of content.

You might give 3 tips or 5 tips, but it’s all around ONE compelling outcome.

Don’t underestimate the importance of this.

Keep it simple and organised.

My one outcome for you reading this is for you to be able to write more compelling content. I give 5 keys, but there’s one outcome.

The purpose of your content is to get someone to take action, not to just give them more information or to inspire people.

Whenever you write a piece of content, you always want to be thinking about the action that you want someone to take at the end of reading it.

Some people wonder whether they should include more than one call to action in a piece of content.

My recommendation is to focus on one clear call to action per piece of content.

When you have too many outcomes people get confused, so keep your focus on one outcome per piece of content.

Again, keep it simple.

Now you may be wondering, surely it can’t be that simple?

With the amount of information coming at us on a daily basis, keeping it simple is actually one of the most important things to remember in your content.

No one likes feeling overwhelmed when they consume content. They want to be educated, informed and inspired.

If you’re wondering whether you will ever have what it takes to write compelling content, let me encourage you.

No one is born with this skill. It’s developed through consistent practice.

With the use of technology like grammarly and spell check, you can create super compelling and engaging content, no matter how inexperienced a write you feel you are.

So to recap these 5 keys to writing compelling content…

1 – Be Emotive

2 – Speak Your Ideal Client’s Language

3 – Use the word ‘You’

4 – Use Benefit-Rich Language

5 –  Focus On One Outcome

 

Want some help writing compelling content?

Click here to book a 15-minute call to help you make your content pop!

Kat

 

 

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Checklist of Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly Actions to Grow Your Business

Do you ever find that you can wake up in the morning, open your laptop, and not know where to start?

Do you get caught up in consuming things like emails and Facebook, rather than creating and taking more planned, productive actions?

If we don’t have a plan for taking intentional, purposeful action, then we can do a bunch of things and not achieve a lot!

I’m so excited to share with you some really handy action steps that you can take to grow your business.

This is a step-by-step guide of exactly what you need to do to get more clients if you’re a service-based business owner, a coach consultant, a practitioner or any kind of service professional.

I’m going to give you some suggestions of things that you can do daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly, no matter where you’re at in your business.

You can download the checklist with all the actions here

Daily Actions

These are important daily actions that I recommend you do every single day before you do anything else, including emails.

I recommend that you set your intention for the day and then plan your day.

Your intention might be to stay focused. Be proactive and clear about this intention and write it down on a card and stick it to your laptop or on your desk so you can see it!

1. Plan Your Day

I usually take about 10 minutes to plan my day because I do a weekly review and a plan on a Sunday or Monday. I grab my old-school exercise book, then I go to my master To-Do list on my spreadsheet, and choose the most crucial action points for that day.

Always start with being intentional and that way you are not reacting to life. You are in control of your business, your life and you are the one that’s driving your business.

There’s no excuses,  no blame,  just you in control, taking the lead and setting the tone for your day to be really productive. Being intentional helps prevent you from getting caught chasing rabbits down holes!

2. Respond to Social Media Comments, Messages and Analyse Advert Data

The next thing I do is respond to any comments or messages on social media so I’m not getting caught up on social media throughout the day. I set a timer so I don’t get stuck on my socials.

In this time you can check your Facebook ads and analyse the data.  If you are running Facebook ads, you want to be in there analysing the data. You don’t want to be just leaking out money on Facebook or on your other social adverts.

If you’re doing some split testing of ads A and B, you want to be on top of that daily, especially if you’ve got an event coming up.

3. Post on Your Socials Daily

Try to post on your social media business page daily if you have time. You can use the same exact post, image and content because you’re directing it to your social media plan.

I use Buffer for this, which is scheduling software.  Buffer helps you push your posts out looking cleaner.  It’s a lot more time-efficient and you can go in later and add hashtags.

You don’t want to change your posts for every single platform unless you’ve got all the time in the world.

Weekly Actions

Set your intentions for the week and plan your week. Some people do this on a Friday so that they can go into Monday knowing exactly what they’re doing. Some of you might want to do it on a Sunday night or Monday morning.

1. Update Your Online Calendar

Make sure that you have all of your priorities listed out however you’d like to do it. Then, what I recommend is you have an online calendar like Calendly and block out your dates and times for the week.

I do this at the beginning and end of the week to ensure it’s up to date and refreshed.

Every week you want to ensure you are inviting people to like your business page, so if you’re adding new friends, make sure you have a system for inviting them to like your page.

You also want to quickly invite people to like your business page and if you have a Facebook group, every week make sure you’re inviting new people to that weekly.

If you don’t schedule it and its not part of your system then it can get left behind.

2. Write a Blog Post 

I recommend that you write a blog post every week.  I do this by getting my assistant to transcribe my video into the blog you see on my website. She downloads the video from Facebook, transcribes it and uploads it to YouTube. She takes care of my waffle!

You might want to do that as a system: Do your FB live, write your blog, then send it out in an email to your community. Your people deserve to hear from you, every single week you’ve got so much knowledge.

Make sure that you’re showing up and serving them.  Send an email at least once a week.  Making a system helps you connect with new and potential clients.

3. Reconcile Your Accounts and Do a Weekly Review

I do this every Friday. I’ll go through and reconcile my accounts and look at my income and expenses, every single week.

The other thing I do every Friday is a weekly review. I’ll sit down and I’ll write out my wins and my learnings in my reflections.

If you don’t track information and mark your progress, you won’t feel that feeling of satisfaction when you achieve your goals, which is incredible. And you won’t really analyse and reflect on what you could have done better.

So I literally just do a massive brain dump on a Word document every Friday and it just keeps me on track. If you have a community, you can ask them to do it with you as well.

In my private Inner Circle Facebook Group community, I always get them to post their actions on a Monday, and then on a Friday I get them to post their wins, their reflections their learnings and we all celebrate.

We need to celebrate our successes and it’s really nice to do it together as businesses.

Monthly Actions

I recommend that you have a system that you revisit your website and refresh it monthly, updating any wording or images to keep it fresh.

You might need to update events that you’ve got coming up, depending on how many you do. I tend to do a meet-up every month when we’re not in isolation.

I do a webinar about once a month. If you do 12 webinars a year then you are consistently bringing in new leads to your business. All the people that register and don’t go end up on your email list.

Webinars are an amazing asset to have in your business, and they’re working so well at the moment. Once we get back out there into the marketplace and actually seeing each other in person, then I recommend a meetup event where you are showing up as the expert, the educator and the authority.

Quarterly Actions

If you don’t have quarterly goals, I recommend that you consider creating and aiming to hit quarterly goals so you know exactly what you’re working on for the following three months.

if you block out your year into the three-month blocks you can work out how many quotes you need, how many webinars, conversations and discovery session to fill your quota.

Each quarter I go away and do my quarterly review. I actually book a place at the end of March, June, September and then have the big one at the end of the year.

I do all my planning in this time for the following quarter. I set my goals and I’ve got my vision board. I set my habits, targets and reflect on the past quarter.

You might want to revisit your business vision and mission and values during this time.  It’s always good to sit back and work on your business, rather than in your business. This helps you to take a step back and take a strategic look at your business.

You also want to plan some events, launches and workshop days for the following quarter. Every quarter I do a free workshop. Free workshops are a lead magnet that I get to meet new people and bring them into my business.

I also recommend that you create a new freebie as a new lead magnet every quarter.

Want to know exactly HOW to do these actions, so you can get new paying clients fast?

I’m running a FREE workshop THIS Saturday, 23rd of May ‘Attract New Clients With Ease’.

This workshop is exclusively for service-based entrepreneurs, running their own small business.

During this workshop we’re going to cover step by step, exactly how to attract new paying clients who are willing to pay you what you’re worth.

You’ll learn how to create an effective online strategy, great content that connects with your ideal client and a streamlined automation system.

You will discover my proven 5-Step Client Attraction Formula – it’s a step-by-step process of everything you need to attract new clients. It’s been tried and tested and it works.

You’ll walk away with a clear, step-by-step marketing roadmap that takes away all the guesswork.

There’s no catch, no hype, just valuable content and action-taking. These online workshops are quite small, because I do limit the amount of people that I allow to register.

So, are you ready to start attracting your ideal paying clients?

Click here to learn more

I can’t wait to see you soon!

Kat

 

P.S You can download the checklist with all the actions here

 

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7 Reasons Why Coaches Struggle To Sign Up Clients

The restrictions might be starting to lift, however, the financial crisis could keep going for some time.

I believe that in this time in history, it is more crucial than ever to be able to sell our services.

Selling is the #1 way that we keep our businesses afloat.

Selling helps people to improve their lives. It enables people to get more of what they want.

It’s an incredible feeling if you are offering something to someone who is going to benefit and get a result that transforms their life.

Yet so many business owners avoid learning sales skills.

I believe that more than ever, it’s a time for us to serve people and make offers to people who need help.

Selling is not about convincing someone or changing someone’s mind. It’s about having good conversations and seeing if you’re the right match to work together.

Sales is the #1 way to increase the numbers in your bank account, which is going to give you more freedom and more choice in your life.

And the best part is that we get to do it while doing what we love and helping people!

Here are seven reasons most coaches struggle to sell their services…

Number 1 – Asking too few questions

Effective sales conversations come from asking effective questions. Unfortunately people have negative associations with sales. Effective selling is about asking effective questions. I call them power questions.

These questions open up your potential clients’ minds ways to overcome their limiting beliefs about themselves, about you and about what you’re offering.

Effective questions, help the person to come to the realisation themselves that they actually need, what it is that you’re offering.

We need to spend at least 70% of the conversation asking questions. This is not interrogating, but asking elegant questions.

Some examples of effective sale questions are:

  • Tell me what your life would be like if you solved this problem?
  • Tell me what it’s costing you to not have this problem solved?
  • How is it affecting you?
  • Why is it important to you to solve this?
  • How is this affecting your family, relationships and health?
  • If you could change, what would be your ultimate result?
  • What have you tried in the past, and what has worked for you?
  • What hasn’t worked for you?

By asking these questions, you’re really digging in and getting to know the person to find out if they’re a match for you and to see if that person really wants to buy what you have to offer.

Number 2 – Talking Too Much or Too Little

If people who are selling to me talk too much, it makes me want to get out of the conversation. Talking too much can kill a sale for you.

No matter how good your product and offer is, talking too much doesn’t give the person you are talking to time to evaluate their own needs.

I understand that we often talk too much because we are nervous and to fill the air. There is value in allowing breathing space for people to contemplate their needs.

Now talking too little can also kill a sale. If a salesperson is not talking much, it makes me question what they are not telling me and why!

Both talking too much and too little lead back to the base of using a sales call as an opportunity to build a relationship with a potential client.

Remember that relationships go two ways. Asking the right questions and listening to needs helps you both work out if you are a match to work together.

Number 3 – Coming Across Too Strong

There’s a concept that I teach called strength and warmth. Strength and warmth is the spectrum of how we need both sides to be compelling and influential.

There’s a great book called Compelling People. In this book, they studied influential people and found they had a really good balance between strength and warmth.

There’s a sweet spot in the middle of being both strong and warm. By strong I mean you are quite direct and confident. You’re telling the person that you can absolutely help them, you’re giving them lots of assurance. People respect it and feel safe.

You tip over too much to one end of the spectrum and it can come across very forceful and almost rude. Most of us are actually scared of coming across like that. And so, for most of you, I imagine that you’re not strong enough.

Number 4 – Coming Across Too Soft

The fourth reason that coaches don’t sign up clients is coming across too soft. If you go too much on the warm end of the spectrum you can come across quite fluffy and apologetic. As soon as there’s any sign that a person might throw an objection out at you, you accept it, because you’re scared of rejection.

So instead of having an open authentic conversation, you end up just being really fluffy and avoiding it. We need to be strong and we need to kind to help people through their limiting beliefs and rejections.

Building good rapport with the person is crucial. You can say something like, ‘I can feel that this really seems like a problem for you.’ ‘What other options do you have if you don’t go here?’ Help people solve their problem rather than just running as soon as there’s any sign of any doubt.

So don’t be too strong, and forceful and blunt and direct and don’t be too soft. Find that nice sweet spot in the middle where you’re having a genuine human conversation with another person to see if you’re a match.

Number 5 – You’re Too Expensive

Many people try and go quite high in their charging before actually testing the market. They put their price too high before they’ve actually got the experience.

Make sure that if you’re not signing up any paid clients, you might need to drop your price to get some results and some great runs on the board. If you’ve not got testimonials to back your service, then you’re going to struggle to sell yourself at a higher price.

Build up your client base and build your testimonials. Testimonials of your clients’ transformations are essential for your business. This may mean doing some free coaching sessions in return for a testimonial and to build up your experience.

Number 6 – You’re Too Cheap

You’ve got to be in the middle- not too expensive and not too cheap. If you haven’t had any paid clients yet, you might give a discount for the first three clients in return for a testimonial.

If you’ve been coaching for ages and you’ve got clients already, then this is different, but when you’re starting out, it’s really important that you get results and transformations.  Then you can do things like webinars because you can only to webinars if you’ve had results for people.

If you feel that you’re a bit resentful when you tell people your price and if you feel like you’ve dropped the price because you are desperate for sales, then you may well need to increase your price.

People won’t value you if you’ve priced your service too cheaply.  The biggest investment I’ve made into my business was a $17,000 business course.  Because I had invested, I turned up and did the work.

If you are too cheap, people will just think that you’re not good, so please don’t undersell yourself!

Number 7 – Having Too Little Confidence

When we gain confidence to charge what we’re worth, we can have great conversations with people and we can confidently communicate our value.

When we truly know that we’re providing great value to someone and getting them results, it helps build our confidence. I’m working with clients, every single day. Last week I had 18 clients and this week I’ve worked with 27 clients and I’m getting them results.

I’m giving people value and helping them and this gives me a lot of confidence. So you’ve got to be good at what you do and you’ve got to be able to communicate what you do well and with confidence.

To gain confidence you need to do lots of practice sessions. I’ve literally given hundreds of free coaching sessions to people and it built up my practice and it also built my confidence in selling and making offers.

The next thing with confidence is making sure that you’re speaking to the right person. It’s very hard to sell to someone who genuinely doesn’t need what you’ve got. I try and prequalify people beforehand through a questionnaire.

Only work with committed people because your reputation is valuable. Your reputation and brand is more important than money.

Make sure that you’re only having sales conversations with people who you know you can definitely get a transformation and results for. That is going to build your confidence.

If you want to know the best way to sell during these current times, I recently ran a FREE 90-minute masterclass called ‘Selling Equals Service’

It was a powerful session and I received lots of great feedback afterwards.

I talked through 5 keys to effective selling and shared a 6-step VALUES based selling framework that I personally use and share with my clients.

In case you missed it, I’ve created a replay which is now available for the next 48 hours. ?

? Grab Your Free Access Here

P.S. The content is a game-changer if you want to sign up your ideal paying clients, so don’t procrastinate – take action and watch it today before it comes down!

Enjoy!

Kat

 

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